suspension

This picture is kind of how I feel right now...suspended above something vast and complex and unknown.

 



 
The comparison between my life and the picture breaks down when you look at Josu's facial expression: he is smiling at Mexico City. When I look down at the sprawling city of possibilities beneath me, I am not always smiling!
 
I've been excited about college for what feels like forever. Meeting new people, immersing myself in a new environment, having my thinking challenged, studying the things I am passionate about - how could I not be excited? Except for lately I've been second guessing everything I thought I knew about my future plans. Since I'm graduating this year, I feel like now would be a great time for some decision-making confidence...but I have very little. This uncertainty is giving me a sick feeling in the pit of my stomach.
 
All this begs the question: what am I supposed to do? Application deadlines are approaching; I can't afford to ignore the future until my feelings come around. Mr. Ayala, my Spanish tutor, gave me some sound advice yesterday: I need to list out my priorities and evaluate what matters most to me. Those top priorities are what I should pursue with passion and self-discipline. I'm going to make that list, pray over that list, pray some more, and hopefully get a lot of wise counsel. But even once I take those steps, I have no guarantee that I will receive a clear answer about what I'm supposed to do with my life, a sort of unmistakable directive from God. I'm yearning for certainty.
 
Psalm 95:6-7 comforted me this morning:
 

"Come, let us worship and bow down,

Let us kneel before the Lord our Maker.

For He is our God,

And we are the people of HIs pasture and the sheep of His hand."

Right now, I am not at all sure of my place in the world. But I can rest securely in the place I have in the fold of God. He is my Shepherd, and He loves me. He is going to lead me to the greenest pastures, the purest waters, the place where I will flourish. What does this truth mean for me  practically?

I need to take the next step, and the next step, and the next. I will do what wisdom suggests and trust God to direct my steps. And I need to delight in the place God has me in now.

My last night in Mexico City was perfect for reminding me of that. We disembarked from the metro and walked home after the Mexico vs. Puerto Rico basketball game, which I attended not for basketball but for the people. I love the people I met in Mexico. And the people I walked home from the game with – Joshua, Naomi, Josu, Selma, Bruno, Renee – were some of the dearest to my heart. But I did not connect with any of them on the way back to the apartment. Naomi, carrying Selma, chatted with Bruno. Renee was engaged in a conversation with Joshua, who held Josu by the hand. They weren’t excluding me, not at all. If I had joined either conversation, I would have been welcomed. Still, something held me back. I truly believe that “something” was God reminding me of this: as much as I love the community I encountered in Mexico City, it is not my community. Those people not my people. They belong to each other and I, at least for now, belong somewhere else. I belong in San Antonio. I belong at Believers Fellowship. My family, my neighbors, the people in my church – this is my community. These are my people.

As I am sure many of you are, I am at a turning point in my life. I am going to change and the people around me are going to change. I don’t know how many of those I hold dear will still be a part of my life five years from now. Each day brings me closer to a bend in the road, and I haven’t the slightest idea what lies around the bend. But that doesn’t change the fact that I am called to rejoice every step of the way. Even in the uncertainty, God has given me a place in His heart, among His people. I want to delight in every moment He gives me on this lovely, winding path.

 

Park in La Roma

 

El Centro

 

Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,

And sorry I could not travel both

And be one traveler, long I stood

And looked down one as far as I could

To where it bent in the undergrowth;

 

Then took the other, as just as fair,

And having perhaps the better claim,

Because it was grassy and wanted wear;

Though as for that, the passing there

Had worn them really the same,

 

And both that morning equally lay

In leaves no step had trodden black

Oh, I kept the first for another day!

Yet knowing how way leads on to way,

I doubted if I should ever come back.

 

I shall be telling this with a sigh

Somewhere ages and ages hence:

Two roads diverged in a wood, and I –

I took the one less traveled by,

And that has made all the difference.

 

[Robert Frost]